I just made another sign for the Garland Community Garden.  Our garden will be filled with signs this year.  Making these signs reminds me of when I was a youngster and took cross-country vacations with my parents.  From 1925 to 1963 the landscape of the USA was dotted with Burma Shave signs.  They came down in 1963 when the corporation was gobbled up by another corporations.Typically, six consecutive small signs would be posted along the edge of highways, spaced for sequential reading by passing motorists. The last sign was almost always the name of the product. Here is a typical sequence:  

• Shave the modern way / No brush / No lather / No rub-in / Big tube 35 cents – Drug stores / Burma-Shave

As I've mentioned more than once:  the garden is a great teacher and the lessons it offers are endless.  To learn from the garden, all the visitor need to do is to stay fully present in the moment.

Rule of Thumb - a broadly accurate guide or principle, based on experience or practice rather than theory.

If it has been a hot day and you have already given them their weekly quota of water, but the plants look wilted, wait until early morning and return.  If the plants still appear wilted, then water them.   (Green rule of thumb for water amounts for vegetables are six gallons of water per square yard per week which equals to one inch of water per week.  This required amount varies some with vegetable variety and drought conditions--thus, green rule of thumb.)

Look for any signs of pests or diseases.  Take photos and visit the Internet to see what the remedies are for the particular issue.

Life’s Lessons from the Garden:       

The garden is a wonderful place that is full of lessons that we can apply to our lives and teach our children and grandchildren. This important rule of green thumb teaches us that problems can be managed and even solved if we pay attention to changes and then take action to remedy the threat when we see it.  The gardeners who visit the garden only once a week to water it may find that the vegetables have succumbed to heat or insects in their absence.